Hereditary systems:approximate solutions and parameter estimation

Abstract

Approximation methods for a broad class of linear hereditary systems are introduced for the solution of a parameter estimation problem. Input-output data is used along with these approximation methods to estimate unknown parameters in linear hereditary systems. Convergence results for each approximation are obtained and attention is given to the numerical implementation of the methods. For delay differential equations many computational simplifications are possible and numerical results obtained by apply-ing the methods to parameter estimation problems for delay equations are presented.